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Well, here we are in Hanoi, Vietnam's captial city! Cant believe that Vietnam is nearly over….
The night bus here was horrendous.
Poor Dom got stuck on a bed that was far too small for him and he couldn't sleep ! (again i was fine...) Also he kept sneezing loads and it was clear that he was getting a cold!! (Can you beleive were in asia with a cold) Its not surprising really as the air con on the bus was a bit OTT (as its not exactly hot here in the North anyway) If we were cold (and were used to English weather) then the locals on their must have been freezing !!
When we first got on the bus we thought we were on the wrong one as we were the only westerners on it and nobody really checked our tickets (we just had a bad feeling) but soon enough a few more farangs got on looking as confused as us…a girl from Reading named Ellie was on the bed behind Dom and we got chatting to her.
We arrived here at 7.30am and had donuts for breakfast ! Nutritious! And a nice introduction to Hanoi.
The streets are jam packed with shops, markets, restaurants and bars/pubs.
The traffic here is worse than Saigon in a way...its unbelievably busy (like Saigon) but there aren't really any footpaths and some of the roads are unbelievably wide! There are no gaps in the traffic at all, a couple of times I honestly thought the cars have put their foot down to frighten us (and it worked!)
The rules on the road here are; the bigger the vehicle , the more right of way you have. And everyone uses their horns to let other vehicles know that they are over taking - Back at home this would cause road rage …. Some drivers are worse than others for the horn beeping! And some of the cars/buses have a FADING horn… its so annoying as it lasts for about 3-4 seconds and fades out…. So its VERY noisy outside.
We found a nice little pub/restaurant called LE PUB which instantly caught our attention and today we had expensive sandwiches (camembert - Kelly will be proud! - bacon and cranberry sauce yum yum) and a Hanoi Beer each.
Apparently the 'thing' to do here is visit Hoi Chi Minh….literally…. his body has been preserved and you can go and see him but we were lazy and opted for a lie in and a Water Puppet Show instead!!!
Water Puppetry was created by farmers who spent their days in flooded rice fields and was first performed a thousand years ago on the surface of ponds and in paddy fields .
I loved the water puppets! It was so entertaining even though we couldn't understand a word! The music was amazing and the way that the puppets moved and dance…. (I don't get out much)
Weve also booked our Halong Bay trip for tomorrow…
So we'll update you with that soon…. xxx
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